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GDL Law Notes GDL Equity and Trusts Notes

Constitution Notes

Updated Constitution Notes

GDL Equity and Trusts Notes

GDL Equity and Trusts

Approximately 631 pages

A collection of the best GDL notes the director of Oxbridge Notes (an Oxford law graduate) could find after combing through many applications from mostly first class students and carefully evaluating each on accuracy, formatting, logical structure, spelling/grammar, conciseness and "wow-factor". In short these are what we believe to be the strongest set of GDL notes available in the UK this year. You'll notice that we include several different authors' worth of notes. The first is our 2017 author...

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Formalities: Equitable title

Constitution: Legal Title

  • Concerned with constitution during lifetime (as constitution takes place under the will upon death)

Milroy v Lord:

  1. Methods appropriate to transferring different types of property

  2. Methods of conferring the benefit of property on people set down:

    • An outright gift

    • A transfer on trust – with someone else as the trustee (transfer on trust)

    • Self-declaration of trust – settlor declares himself as trustee

  3. That equity will not perfect an imperfect gift

5 main types of property:

  1. Chattels – pure personal – you can do it formally – but you don’t have to: intention/delivery (informal transfer)

  2. Shares: Shares in a private company:

  • Must execute a stock transfer form - s1, Stock Transfer Act 1963

  • Must send it with the old share certificate to the company – where registrar of the company will register the new shares (unless exemption in Articles)

  • (Shares in public companies: CREST system)

  1. Copyright: S90(3), Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  2. Bank Account: A Bank Account = a debt – creditor/debtor relationship – chose in action – if you want to transfer the benefit – s1376 Law of Property Act – signed, written notice to the debtor (the bank)

  3. Land: s52, LPA 1925 – by deed

  • deed defined in s1 LP(MP)A 1989:

    1. Written

    2. Signed

    3. Witnessed

    4. Headed deed

    5. Delivered

Methods of Benefiting Another:

Legal Interests:

  1. Outright gift

  2. Transfer on trust

  3. Self-declaration of trust

Equitable interests:

4 types from Timpson’s Executors v Yerbury (Above)

Failure to constitute – Ineffectual transfer

The Principle

  • Equity will not assist a volunteer - A volunteer is someone who doesn’t provide any consideration – doesn’t give anything in return

  • Equity will not perfect an imperfect gift

  • Equity will not treat a failed gift as a self-declaration of trust

Application:

  1. If as in Milroy v Lord – settlor intends to create a settlement by transfer but fails to vest legal title in the trustees – then equity will not perfect

  2. If donor intended absolute gift – but failed to effectively transfer the property – equity will not construe the failed absolute gift (method 1) as a declaration of trust (method 3)

    • Jones v Lock – Jones returned home without a present for his baby so produced a cheque payable to himself and said ‘I give this to baby; it is for himself’ – he died shortly afterwards – but as he had not endorsed the cheque to his son – the property had not been transferred – courts rejected argument that he had declared himself a trustee of the cheque

    • Richards v Delbridge grandfather endorsed on his lease a memorandum saying ‘this deed and all thereto belonging I give to Edward (a minor) from this time forth’ – he later died – held that lease hadn’t been legally assigned (needs to have a separate deed) – and couldn’t be construed as a declaration of trust because he had intended an absolute gift

    • Paul v Constancecontrast to above cases: effective declaration of trust found because of sufficient intention on the part of Constance to make himself a trustee of the money in the account

    • Shah v Shah –CA construed a letter referring to transfer of shares as a declaration of trust of the shares, rather than a gift

Unless an exception applies:

  • Rule in Re Rose

  • Rule in Strong v Bird

  • Donatio Mortis Causa

  • Proprietary Estoppel

  • Choithram v Pagarani

  • Pennington v Waine

THE EXCEPTIONS:

Transfer Effectual in Equity

Re Rose: A Transferor has done all in his power

  • A gift of shares: S1 Stock Transfer Act – stock transfer form needs to be sent with old share certificates to the company for registration

  • This was done – but she died before registration had happened: legal title was not completed in lifetime and there was no mention of them in the will so under Milroy v Lord: shares would go into her residue

  • CA: if you have (1) Used the correct methods (2) Done all that he/she can (3) Put the matter beyond his control then the transfer will be effective

  • Delay here was caused by the company: no fault on the part of the donor

  • Mascall v Mascall : principle will also apply where all the relevant documentation has been given to the donee/trustee:

    • Transfer of land: executed deed and gave everything necessary to the son

    • Son hadn’t sent it to the land registry yet – so legal transfer not yet transferred

    • But father had put it beyond his control so equity stepped in

  • Re Fry: still more the transferor needed to do: was domiciled abroad and had not obtained Treasury consent (as required by statute at the time) and died before it was obtained: transfer was ineffective

  • Zeital v Kaye: handed over a share transfer form signed by the registered shareholder but had not handed over the share certificate: CA held that he had not done everything in his power to transfer the shareholding

Pennington v Waine: under narrow circumstances there will be no legal requirement for the form to be delivered to the donee or the company

  • Donor told Mr Pennington (partner in the Company’s auditors), two months before her death, that she wished to immediately transfer 400 shares to her nephew: signed share transfer form and gave it to Mr P who placed it on his file but took no further action, and told her to ‘do nothing’

  • Donee was informed of the gift

  • Donor also informed donee that she wanted him to become director (needed at least 1 share): form of consent, took on benefits/burdens of...

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